A Memoir Paperback | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY/Memoirs Standing in front of a group of teachers to discuss his novel Macho!, Victor Villaseñor was flooded with childhood memories and overwhelmed by anger. Instead of talking about his literary work, Villaseñor dedicated his presentation to explaining the source of his anger: the trauma inflicted on him by his seventh-grade English teacher and the hate he had silently harbored for American educators. Villaseñor received a standing ovation from the audience, many of whom were moved to tears, and this experience inspired him to share his story in Burro Genius. Although highly gifted and imaginative, as a child Villaseñor coped with an untreated learning disability (he was finally diagnosed with extreme dyslexia at the age of forty-four) and the frustration of growing up Latino in an English-only American school system in the 1940s.